Feminism and Health in the Decade of Behavior

National health data are presented to demonstrate that important issues of women's health are linked to inequality and to the generalized oppression of women. Health issues of violence, reproductive health, coronary health, and mental health are reviewed as they relate to women of color and diverse ethnicity as well as to women in general. Feminist principles are applied to these issues, pointing out inequalities in assessment, treatment and access to care, bias in research and lack of research on topics particularly relevant to women and minorities, and limitations in the education and training of health care providers. It is imperative that these problems, which are not solely biological, be addressed in light of systems-level analysis that includes a feminist lens. Guided by feminist principles and sensibilities, the relevance of behavioral and social science is outlined for research, training, assessment, intervention, evaluation, and overall social change.     

Feminism and the Decade of Behavior

This Psychology of Women Quarterly special issue argues that the goals of the Decade of Behavior to foster a healthier, safer, better educated, more prosperous, and more democratic nation cannot be achieved without contributions from feminist psychology. Its individual articles reflect feminist perspectives and provide examples of how feminist perspectives can inform behavioral and social research within Decade domains. In this overview, we outline the challenges that gender poses to achieving Decade goals, and discuss four cross-cutting feminist principles for research to address those challenges: Inclusiveness and Diversity, Context, Power and Privilege, and Activism. We discuss specific limitations of traditional research, and emphasize the need for new models that view the world in more complex, context-based ways. We underscore the importance of generating new, diversity-mindful research questions and of developing and accepting new methods to answer them. We discuss policy implications, stressing the need for activism. We hope this work will encourage the expansion of feminist scholarship in the new millennium and be helpful to researchers, educators, and policymakers in working to achieve the goals of the Decade of Behavior.